Re: Let's Take a Survey

I seem to be exciting more questions about religious establishments than about Abernathys.

As far as I know, the Virginia establishment, though perhaps stronger than in the other Southern colonies, was loose, lax and tolerant, especially after 1689 when English law removed disabilities from Presbyterians, Independents (Congregationalists) and Baptists though not Catholics and Quakers.Thus, there was no reason in the eighteenth century that Robert Abernathy III and Charles Abernathy had to have children baptized iin the Church of England or that Robert Abernathy III had to serve as a vestryman.

As far as I know, the Virginia establishment, though perhaps stronger than in the other Southern colonies, was loose, lax and tolerant, especially after 1689 when English law removed disabilities from Presbyterians, Independents (Congregationalists) and Baptists though not Catholics and Quakers.Thus, there was no reason in the eighteenth century that Robert Abernathy III and Charles Abernathy had to have children baptized iin the Church of England or that Robert Abernathy III had to serve as a vestryman.

The baptisms are recorded in the registers for Bristol Parish, which were published in the late nineteenth century and constitute one of the primary sources for Abernathy history.The problem is that no registers are extant for Bath Parish after it was created; so one loses the chain until the southside Abernathys emerge as Methodists.I have a document that would seem to link some of the southside Abernathys to Rev. Devereux Jarratt (the Methodist-leaning rector of Bath) and Sappony Church just after the Revolution, but the evidence is certainly not clear.

The baptisms are recorded in the registers for Bristol Parish, which were published in the late nineteenth century and constitute one of the primary sources for Abernathy history.The problem is that no registers are extant for Bath Parish after it was created; so one loses the chain until the southside Abernathys emerge as Methodists.I have a document that would seem to link some of the southside Abernathys to Rev. Devereux Jarratt (the Methodist-leaning rector of Bath) and Sappony Church just after the Revolution, but the evidence is certainly not clear.I have not yet assimilated what it could mean that some of the South Carolina Abernathys were ARP, at least in the nineteenth century, but I have been reading about the ARPs.Iremain interested in the religious orientation of other colonial Abernathys, however, including additional reports from South Carolina.